


between, our time

by shanlyrical



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Sad Ending, Secret Relationship, Slice of Life, Tatooine (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-08-07 01:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16398845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shanlyrical/pseuds/shanlyrical
Summary: When they met, it had to be with the utmost secrecy. No one could know, not Grand Master Yoda or the rest of the Jedi High Council, not his fellow Jedi knights. Not even – no,especiallynot – Anakin.Never Anakin.Anakin could never, ever be permitted to find out about him and Shmi Skywalker.





	between, our time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveronthetree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveronthetree/gifts).



When they met, it had to be with the utmost secrecy. No one could know, not Grand Master Yoda or the rest of the Jedi High Council, not his fellow Jedi knights. Not even – no, _especially_ not – Anakin.

Never Anakin.

Anakin could never, _ever_ be permitted to find out about him and Shmi Skywalker.

In the beginning, it was easy. Anakin had come so late to the training; there was so much ground for him to make up…and not merely in terms of formalized use of the Force. The scope of his general education was sorely lacking as well. Of course, this was nothing unexpected for a former child slave on an Outer Rim backwater like Tatooine, and there was little Obi-Wan Kenobi could do about it besides sign the boy up to all of the necessary remedial classes and wait patiently – surplus to requirements as Anakin’s master – while Anakin worked his fast and furious way toward demonstrated mastery of the course material.

Yet, even in spite of this extra free time without his new padawan learner, he hadn’t actually _planned_ to go and meet Anakin’s mother. But when the return journey from a short diplomatic mission took him within a quarter-parsec of Tatooine, he thought, _Why not?_ Anakin wasn’t permitted contact with his family, but no such restrictions applied to Obi-Wan. Maybe he’d learn something about his apprentice that would help him become a better master. Anakin was his first, after all, and he wanted to do right by the boy! He’d promised Qui-Gon he would!

Besides, Qui-Gon had clearly thought very highly of Shmi. That, in the end, had been reason enough.

He found her behind the counter of the Toydarian’s shop in Mos Espa, her hands working deftly on some mysterious bit of tech. She didn’t seem surprised to see him.

“Master Jedi,” she murmured softly in greeting.

“Please, call me Obi-Wan,” he replied.

“As you wish.”

Her hands never stopped moving, not even when she spoke. Obi-Wan watched, entranced. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this sun-bronzed woman with dark hair and eyes. Strong, with hidden sorrows, ageing, unbowed. Beautiful. Obi-Wan felt captivated, ensnared.

After that, Obi-Wan visited the shop whenever he could spare the time, which was surprisingly often, all things considered. They didn’t talk that much when he was around, but they didn’t need to. Their silence was companionable.

Although Qui-Gon had originally come to Watto’s shop looking for parts and labor to repair a Nubian hyperdrive, most of the repairs for which Shmi was responsible related not to ships but rather to droids, communications arrays, and vaporators. Obi-Wan observed the work, and learned. He learned where – or, rather, from _whom_ – Anakin had acquired his knack for fixing things, and he learned a bit about fixing things himself. He was beyond hopeless with droids, but he managed to jury rig a short-range comm panel back into semi-functioning…and as for the many broken vaporator condenser modules customers brought into the shop…

“You might actually have a chance of surviving out in the desert. We’ll make a Tatooine native of you yet, Obi-Wan!” Shmi said, teasing him with her familiar, warm chuckle.

She invited him home for the first time that night. He protested, of course, saying he didn’t wish to impose, but Shmi wouldn’t hear of it. They compromised by preparing dinner together.

“This is a tthairein fruit.” Shmi nodded toward the wrinkled, greyish-tan gourd that was doing an excellent impression of a rock. “They grow a third of a meter or so beneath the sand of the Jundland wastes. Drill a hole here,” she instructed, handing Obi-Wan a durasteel corkscrew-shaped tool to manipulate while she grilled ground up bits of heavily spiced meat in a pan over an open flame. Obi-Wan did as he was bid – it wasn’t as easy as she’d made it sound – and when he was finished she upended the tthairein fruit over a ceramic cup. A thin stream of liquid poured out.

Shmi handed Obi-Wan the cup. “Drink.”

He did and had to force himself not to grimace with distaste and spit it back out. The liquid was bitter and chalky…but it was mostly water and not to be wasted. He emptied the rest of the cup in a single gulp.

“It may not taste good, but knowing it is there in the ground could save your life if you’re lost in the desert someday.”

“I see,” Obi-Wan said. He rather doubted such a dire eventuality would ever happen to him, but he tucked the knowledge away in a safe place in his mind regardless. Everything about Shmi had become precious to him.

With the tips of her thumbs at the hole Obi-Wan had made, she pried the tthairein open and broke the fruit into two halves. The flesh inside was pale and leathery, and she scraped it out in two unbroken, circular sheets. These, she laid over a wire grill to brown.

Dinner was spiced meat wrapped in grilled tthairein fruit and garnished with soured cream made from blue bantha milk. They ate with their hands. The food was delicious and filling.

After the hunger in their bellies was sated, they discussed Anakin’s progress at the Temple. There wasn’t actually that much to report, other than that he was exceeding expectations as usual, and Shmi knew better than to pry. She was satisfied by the assurance that he was free, and he was thriving, and he was destined for great deeds throughout the galaxy. Obi-Wan wasn’t really supposed to be giving her any updates about her son at all – he should not be cultivating unhealthy attachment – and he was bending the rules nearly to breaking just by being here, by looking in on her regularly, by making sure she was alright.

By making love to her. That night in Shmi’s bed, in Shmi’s modest home in the slave quarter of Mos Espa? That was their first time…but it was by no means their last. There were other kinds of hunger to sate.

* * *

He never told anyone about the visits. Not once. Not a single living being could know. Not even – no, _especially_ not – Anakin.

Never Anakin.

 _That_ would have been beyond the pale, and he would take the secret to his grave.

As Anakin grew and began to monopolize more and more of Obi-Wan’s time and energy, as they were sent off Coruscant on more and more missions together, he was able to visit Tatooine less and less. By the time Anakin was growing his knight’s tail, in expectation that his padawan braid would soon be cut, Obi-Wan had been stopped from visiting Shmi altogether.

So he hadn’t even known that Watto had sold her to Cliegg Lars to pay off gambling debts. He hadn’t known that Cliegg had married her.

He found this out from Anakin. Eventually. It was once Anakin had found the wherewithal within himself to tell Obi-Wan of his mother’s passing, and to his eternal regret, Obi-Wan had been too secretly distraught by the news to notice that there were important things Anakin had neglected to include in his account.

“Oh, Anakin,” Obi-Wan had murmured, and nothing further, as Anakin sought the comfort of his former master’s embrace.

As they had held each other against the pain of their mutual loss.


End file.
